A blog about engagement and marketing

44% of people claim advertising doesn’t work on them

When I first started working in Advertising, I use to hear it all the time.

“You work in Advertising? That stuff doesn’t work on me.”

On the days I was feeling like an ass, I would point out their brand named clothes and their car. Maybe even the beer or bottled water they were consuming.

Most days I would smile and change the subject.

Marketers want advertising to work, but people don’t. People don’t want to be lead to things. Especially if those things are products that we all know we don’t really need. (Hi Apple)

People like to say ads don’t work, and they really like to say banner ads don’t work. So this isn’t unexpected:

Research: 44% of Facebook users will ‘never’ click sponsored ads

According to this article, a survey of people on Facebook said they would never click on an ad. I feel like I’m at that party with the person telling me advertising doesn’t work.

Ads aren’t just there to be clicked on. They are there to get into your brain.

Surely Coca Cola doesn’t have to advertise. With massive distribution, they merely need to stock shelves. And yet, they do advertise.

Coca-Cola (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why? The reason is that the more people see Coke ads, the better the chance that, when it is time to purchase a soft drink, the default decision is Coke.

Coke wants to make people hyper aware so that at the point of purchase, they win. The ads rarely say “buy a coke”. They never have a price point. They never talk about a sale. They create a feeling and emotion that attempts to be remembered. They want you to be remembered at the time of purchase.

So did the ad work? Sales of Coke would seem to prove they do.

I recently ran a Facebook ad to 6,000 people. The ad ran for two weeks and got 170,000 impressions. About 6,000 people saw the ad 170,000 times in 2 weeks.

Aside from the realization that people spend a lot of time on Facebook, we also realized that hardly anyone clicks. The ad didn’t say click me, but it was still clicked 87 times.

So did it work? That’s a great question. We think the ad impressions help move people to act away from Facebook.

Coke doesn’t expect people to leave 30 Rock to go and buy a Coke because of their ad. We didn’t expect people who are looking at their friend’s status updates to leave and click our ad. Nor should you, notwithstanding the 44% of people who promised they wouldn’t even if you offered a free car for the first 20 people who click.

The headline from the article above could have explained:

44% of people who watch 30 Rock will never leave the show to buy an advertised product.

Makes sense. So does the notion that, as part of an overall strategy, Facebook and LinkedIn ads can generate awareness to the proper target market. Have them work with other stuff, and you get close to getting them working: without a click.

Facebook delivers impression data. Can we infer that because people saw an ad more, they signed up more? Yes. But there might be other factors. With one year’s worth of data doing one new thing, we can make assumptions about how that one thing impacted sign ups.

That’s what advertisers do. They look at x, put up a billboard, then look at x. One can infer that the billboard impacted x. It isn’t perfect, but we miss far too many opportunities online if we only measure the click. Most people don’t want to be interrupted.

That’s a good point regarding inference. My point with the lack of impression data had nothing to do whether or not Facebook was supplying that information but rather the article indicated that very few people clicked on the banner ad at all, hence, there would be no real impression data to analyze. Your analogy regarding billboards was appropriate and clarified the issue that merely being present without requiring interaction is still a powerful marketing tool.

That reminds me of another article I read somewhere regarding the way advertisers must adapt to the increased use of television DVRs that allow the television viewer to “skip” commercials. In reality, the DVR simply “fast-forwards” through the commercial, providing the viewer with small fractions-of-a-second views of the commercial as it is being skipped. Even this brief glimpse can be utilized by the marketer to increase brand awareness.